TEMASEK JUNIOR COLLEGE JC 2 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION 2009

GENERAL PAPER
PAPER 2 INSERT 17 Sep 2009 1 hour 30 minutes

8806/2

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES This insert contains the passages for Paper 2.

This insert consists of 4 printed pages Turn over Passage 1 1 No one will ever know for sure why Cho Seung-Hui gunned down more than 30 people at Virginia Tech. Not long ago, scientists invoked genes or brain circuitry, hyperactivity or brutal parental discipline or Americas gun culture to explain horrors ranging from Charles Whitmans clock tower rampage at the University of Texas in 1996 to the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. But although some people with a particular gene variant do grow up to be sociopaths, others with the same variant do not. And if every child who became inured to violence through the Grand Theft Auto computer game or who witnessed chronic conflict between parents during early childhood risk factors for violence went on a murder spree, well, then crimes like Chos would not have network news anchors rushing to the sites of massacres to do their broadcasts. Scientists who study criminal violence committed outside of wars and civil conflicts now believe that its roots are equally planted in the biology of the individual, the psychology that reflects the interaction of innate traits and experiences, and the larger culture. No one cause is sufficient, none deterministic. A genetically identified clone of Cho growing up with different experiences in a different environment would likely not have set an American record for mass murder. Although the biology would have been sufficiently twisted, the psychology the product of experiences interacting with that biology would not have been. A Cho who grew up, say, in Japan may not have acted on his hatred and fury as the larger culture would likely have prevented its execution. When behavioural genetics was in its heyday a decade or two ago, one of its grails was a gene on the X chromosome which makes an enzyme called MAOA, which breaks down brain chemicals such as serotonin and noradrenaline. The normal version of the gene produces lots of MAOA; the aberrant form produces low enzyme levels linked to aggression. Yes, men with the low-activity gene were more likely to engage in persistent fighting, bullying, cruelty and violent crime than were the men with the high activity version but that was only so if they had been neglected or abused as children. The gene was not strictly deterministic in causing someone to become violent, but merely permissive. It cultivates aggression only if society provides fertile ground for this weed to grow. Another observation is that murder and violence are higher in nations with the largest income inequality. The United States ranks high on this problematic measure. By the numbers, the United States should have low levels of homicidal violence, which roughly tracks a countrys income. Britain had, for instance, 1.5 homicides per 100,000 population between 1998 and 2000, Japan had 1.1 while South Africa had 54. The rate of violent death in the United States was 5.9 per 100,000 above even Turkeys 2.5. Clearly culture matters. How so? The United States is a nation of immigrants. For most immigrants who have energy and willing to take risks, this translates into a spark and drive that lead them to success in their adopted land. For a few, however, risk-taking coupled with impulsivity may set the stage for violence. If barriers of language or culture keep an immigrant child from fitting in, it can increase the risk that he will become alienated and, given enough

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

triggers, resort to violence. 5 Rates of criminal violence are higher in mobile and heterogenous societies where it is hard to put down roots and establish the social glue that binds people into a community. The United States is, of course, a highly mobile society and, as a result, a nation of strangers. Observers have divined that the American character has been forged on the frontier. Far from civilization and the reach of laws, the early settlers created the cult of the rugged individual who took justice into his own hands. While it is tricky to argue that the American character explains the murder spree of a Korean immigrant, living in America for 15 impressionable years, Cho could not have avoided soaking in the competitive, individualistic aspects of American culture where winners were admired and people were blamed for their own inadequacies. Individualism exacerbates the sense of injustice that the aggrieved feel. Mass murderers tend to be people with a history of failure, losers who feel chronically frustrated and socially alienated; and the feeling of worthlessness gets internalised in the barrage of messages that an individuals fate lies entirely in his own hands something Asian countries view as ludicrous. If success by the usual definition proves elusive, there is another path. The Columbine shooters wrote in their diaries that they needed a certain body count to reach movie status. In this media-soaked culture, for Hollywood or even the most demeaning reality show to care about your story is the ultimate validation. Killers who choose a high profile crime like Chos are reaching for one final chance to give their life meaning. Young killers also tend to be highly suggestible, modelling their behaviour on widely reported crimes. The Columbine shootings, for example, inspired several similar plans, including Chos. No discussion of violence in American culture is complete without mentioning blood-soaked videogames. Right after earning points for a graphic disemboweling, young players are more aggressive but more in punch-little-sister mode than shooting up a mall. Still there is evidence that violent games have a numbing effect. And so, the blocks stack up the biology that mass murderers carry from birth, the brain circuits laid down as they experience life and the messages they soak up from the world around them. No single experience or character trait is sufficient, no single one to blame. Somewhere in all this is the will, the decision by the gunman to pull the trigger. 45

50

55

60

65

70

75

Adapted from The Anatomy of Violence - Newsweek, April 2007 Passage 2 1 The rioting in Paris and other French cities has led to a lot of interpretations and comments, most of them irrelevant. Many see the violence as religiously motivated, the inevitable result of unchecked immigration from Muslim countries. For others, the rioters are simply acting out of vengeance at being denied their cultural heritage or a fair share in French society. But the reality is that there is nothing particularly Muslim or even French, about the violence. Rather, we are witnessing the

temporary rising up of one part of a Western underclass culture that reaches from Paris to London to Los Angeles and beyond. 2 The riots are geographically and socially very circumscribed: all are occurring in about 100 suburbs, or more precisely, destitute neighbourhoods, known here as cites, quartiers or banlieues. There has long been a strong sense of territorial identity among the young people in these neighbourhoods who have tended to coalesce in loose gangs. The different gangs have typically been reluctant to stroll outside their territories and have vigilantly kept strangers away, be they rival gangs, police officers, firefighters or journalists. Now these gangs are for the most part burning their own neighbourhoods, expressing simmering anger fuelled by unemployment and racism. The lesson, then, is that while these riots originate in areas largely populated by immigrants of Islamic heritage, they have little to do with the wrath of a Muslim community. Most of the rioters come from the second generation of immigrants. They have French citizenship, and they see themselves more as a part of modern Western urban sub-culture than of any Arab-African heritage. Nobody should be surprised that efforts by the government to find community leaders have little success. There are no leaders in these areas for a very simple reason: there is no community in the neighbourhoods. Traditional parental control has disappeared and many Muslim families are headed by a single parent. Elders, imams (religious leaders) and social workers have lost control. Ironically, the youths themselves are often the providers of local social rules, based on aggressive manhood, control of the streets and defence of a territory. Americans (and critics of America in Europe) may see in these riots echoes of black separatism that fuelled the violence in Harlem and Watts in the 1960s. But the French youth are not fighting to be recognised as a minority group, either ethnic or religious; they want to be accepted as full citizens. They have believed in the French model of individual integration through citizenship but feel cheated because of their social and economic exclusion. Hence they destroy what they see are the tools of failed social promotion: schools, social welfare offices, gymnasiums. Disappointment leads to nihilism. For many, fighting the police is some sort of game, and a rite of passage. Contrary to the calls of many liberals, increased emphasis on multiculturalism and respect for other cultures in France is not the answer. This angry young population is highly deculturalised and individualised. There is no reference to Iraq or Palestine in these riots. In the end, we are dealing here with problems found by any culture in which inequities and cultural differences come in conflict with high ideals. Americans, for their part, should take little pleasure in Frances agony the struggle to integrate an angry underclass is one shared across the Western world. 10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Adapted from An underclass culture that spans the globe by Olivier Roy, New York Times Syndicate, September 2005